High School Vocational Program Builds Houses - Free Labor

[Tyler Relph]

Recently, I was made aware of a high school vocational program that requires their students to build one house per year.  I thought this was a genius strategy to get free labor that is supervised by a  licensed contractor.  The school allows members in the district to put in a bid for their house to be built by this program.  A family had some land they wanted a house built on, so they placed a bid with the High School.  Their bid was accepted and the family was able to sit with a builder and design their house plans.  Cost for materials was 180K and after the house was finished, it appraised for 270K.  This family now has 90K in equity on their house they just built.  The students typically fall behind on their schedule, so a local construction company volunteers a few weeks of work to catch them up and finish the project by year end.  This strategy allows the construction trade to be taught to high school kids, a family to have a house built without labor costs, and the construction company was able to write the work off on their taxes.  Seems like win-win-win.